New brokerage account creation within the financial services industry is a critical function. Current account opening procedures are found to be lacking in that there are multiple redundant activities, quality control issues, and customer satisfaction issues related to account opening cycle time that need to be addressed. New account opening procedures generally rely heavily on manual intake of data that is then transferred (typically by fax) to another department for data entry into the financial institution's computer system. This process breeds documentation errors, incomplete documents, and extensive paper handling that result in delays and communication errors that adversely affect new account setup.
What is needed is an automated on-line system and methodology that reduces account opening cycle time and data errors.